Telephone communication (telecommunications) has been around for over 100 years. In general the telecommunications industry has been broadly based on analog telephone services which use a public switched telephone network (PSTN) to provide phone call connections between different analog telecommunication devices. Telecommunication providers connect their customer's calls by employing equipment that monitors dual tone multi-frequency (DTMF) signals (or tones) transmitted from customers' analog dialing device over a plain old telephone service (POTS) circuit. These tones are decoded by the equipment in the telecommunication provider's office, to determine the telephone number to which the call is to be made. The equipment then typically attempts to connect the call through traditional circuit transmission of the PSTN to the POTS circuit associated with the determined telephone number.
Although analog telephone services still dominate the industry, individuals are beginning to replace their analog telephone services with newer technologies such as voice over Internet protocol (VOIP) services (also called Internet telephony, IP telephony and Voice over Internet). VOIP services provide a method of making digital and packetized phone calls over an IP-based network. The VOIP services are typically marketed to households or businesses that already pay for a broadband Internet connection (e.g., through Cable, DSL, T1). VOIP capable phones typically include a wired or wireless Ethernet connection which connects the VOIP phone to an IP-based network that has access to the broadband Internet connection. Also personal computers may be adapted to include a headset and appropriate software for making and receiving VOIP phone calls over the broadband Internet connection. In other embodiments, a VOIP analog telephony adapter (ATA) may be used to make and receive VOIP phone calls over a broadband Internet connection. Such VOIP ATAs typically have: a RJ-11 port for connecting an analog phone; and an Ethernet port for connecting the ATA to a broadband Internet connection. The VOIP ATA includes the necessary circuitry to encode/decode analog voice communications associated with the analog phone to/from packetized VOIP data transmitted through the broadband Internet connection. As used herein, whether in the form of a VOIP phone, a VOIP configured computer or an analog phone connected to a VOIP ATA, such devices or combination of devices which are capable of establishing and receiving VOIP phone calls over an Internet connection are referred to herein as VOIP client devices.
VOIP services may offer free or at least relatively inexpensive local and long distance telephone services to homes and business that have acquired a broadband Internet connection. However, not all homes and business have access to a broadband Internet connection. If such homes and business are located in a rural location, cable or DSL Internet access may not be available. Thus homes and business located in rural areas without broadband Internet access are unable to acquire VOIP services to make phone calls. In addition, even homes and business which do have the ability to acquire a broadband Internet connection, may find that the total cost of the broadband Internet access and the cost of a VOIP service may not be cost effective with respect to an analog telephone service. Thus there exists a need for a system and method which enables VOIP services to be more widely available and/or more cost effective to employ.